Gulls, doing interesting things

UPDATE: Note below that I lamented the too nice weather during my trip last Wednesday. Well, the weather changed big time the following day, and a few Cave Swallows, a Red Phalarope, and two Franklin's Gulls were found at this very spot yesterday. Then, 22 Franklin's Gulls were in about the exact spot where I photographed the Lesser Black-backed Gull this morning. Bad weather means good birding along Lake Erie.

I visited one of my favorite Lake Erie haunts yesterday, Huron, Ohio and its famed municipal pier. This is stop #46 on the Lake Erie Birding Trail, and one of the lake's true birding hotspots. I've been coming here for many, many years, and have seen lots of great birds from this pier.

My hope was for bad weather, and my plan was to perch by the lighthouse at the pier's end and conduct a "sea watch". Rough weather in November can produce lots of scoters, big numbers of gulls, and perhaps jaegers or other rarities such as Red Phalarope. Alas, the weather was too nice - calm seas and very Indian Summerish, with temps ultimately hitting 60F. Nonetheless, I trundled out the 6/10th mile long pier to the end, with much gear in hand, to see what might happen.

Not much was going on at the lighthouse, which wasn't surprising. The lake was flat and waveless, and skies were blue. Well, at least the light was great for making photographs, so that's what I did. This juvenile Bonaparte's Gull was making a regular loop around the lighthouse, so I committed him/her to pixels. On a cold blustery day in November or December, the Huron River and adjacent Lake Erie can swarm with many thousands of these small gulls, and big concentrations often have rarities like Little Gull in their ranks.

There is a small peaty beach just a stone's throw west of the pier at its juncture with the mainland, and I was pleased to find this beautiful Lesser Black-backed Gull there on my return. I was able to make a wonderful series of images of the bird. I wrote a thumbnail sketch of its status in North America and Ohio a few years back; RIGHT HERE.

The early morning light offered near-perfect illumination of the several hundred gulls that roosted on the beach and nearshore waters. Given the unlikelihood of rarities due to the nice weather, I settled in to watch the gulls for a while, and secure some images.

Shooting sitting gulls isn't exactly difficult. They're pretty big, and usually relatively unwary. Thus, to avoid gull shots that look like 10,000 other gull shots, I like to try and catch them doing something interesting. If you wait and watch long enough, they will.

An adult Herring Gull, sporting the dappled browns of its winter plumage, drops its pink landing gear.

Flying gulls are a few notches up the difficulty scale from perched gulls, but still not too tough to pull off. They are often predictable in their flight patterns, and depending on the wind, frequently fly with a rather languid manner. However, capturing good images of certain of their aerial hijinks can be hard.

An adult Ring-billed Gull drops to the water.

Much of one's success with shooting flying birds, gulls or otherwise, depends on how the camera is set up, and the type of lens that is used. A fast shutter speed is essential, obviously. I shot this image and those that follow at 1/2000 of a second, give or take.

A Ring-billed Gull jumps from the water, creating mini waterspouts. The Ring-bill is by far the most common gull in Ohio, in most places at most seasons. As winter sets in on Lake Erie, their numbers will often be matched or bested by Herring Gulls. But on this day, the Ring-billed Gulls were the dominant gull. I've got scads of images of them, but the lighting and overall setup in this spot was too good to pass up.

One interesting gull habit that you may have noticed is their tendency to execute a brief rather violent shimmy soon after take off from water. This hard shake blasts the water from the plumage, and in the process the gull's contortions take on some interesting appearances. I spent quite a bit of time and effort trying to freeze the birds in mid shimmy-shake. It isn't as easy as it might seem. In spite of having a pretty good idea that a recently launched bird might do this, it's still a bit tough to track it smoothly with the camera, and freeze the action. This Ring-billed Gull is in the midst of some interesting water-shedding gyrations.

This image was made at 1/2500, and it still didn't totally freeze the violent wing thrusts of this Ring-billed Gull as it shook fiercely in midair. Notice the turbulence buffeting its primary (outermost) flight feathers.

This is what I was really trying for, and the vast majority of my efforts failed. This one, though, is a keeper. When the gulls do their shimmy shake, they often briefly invert their head and it looks like they are flying upside down. This whole shake and shudder stunt lasts only a second or two, and the bird will only be in this head down position for a fraction of a second.

Watching birds' behavior, even very common species, can sometimes reveal interesting opportunities to make out of the ordinary photographs.

Lesser Black-backed Gull

A pair of Lesser Black-backed Gulls, Larus fuscus, rests on the beach at Cape May, New Jersey. Horning in, lower right, is a first-cycle Ring-billed Gull, Larus delawarensis. I was pleased to see the Lesser Black-backed Gulls on my NJ trip of a few weeks back, and took the time to stalk up fairly close to make some images. The story of this gull in North America is an interesting tale.

The Ring-billed Gull is abundant throughout much of North America. This is the common gull in the interior, away from large water bodies, and is the gull that often flocks in mall parking lots. I noted that it is a first-cycle bird. "Cycle" refers to its molt cycle. This is a bird in its first year; a juvenile. It takes the Ring-billed Gull three years to attain (mostly) adult plumage. The larger gulls in the genus Larus take at least four years to develop adult plumage.

I made this image in December 2006, on a pelagic boat trip into the Atlantic Ocean off Belmar, New Jersey. We encountered this Lesser Black-backed Gull about 90 miles from land, working the waters around some fishing trawlers.

Lesser Black-backed Gulls are native to northwest Europe, where they frequent Atlantic coastal areas. The first record in North America was in 1934, from New Jersey. As the photo above illustrates, gulls are quite at home at sea and far from land. The distance from the gull's native haunts to the shores of America is something like 3,300 miles, but such travels are probably no great shakes for such an animal. This species has been on a westward expansion for some time. Lesser Black-backed Gulls occupied Greenland and began breeding there by 1990, and were nesting in Iceland by the 1920's.

A gorgeous adult Lesser Black-backed Gull, in nonbreeding plumage. Winter adults develop dusky flecking around the head and breast. When the bird attains breeding plumage in early spring, its head and neck will be gleaming white, and the legs and bill will be a brighter shade of yellow.

Even though the first documented North American record dates back to 1934, these gulls remained quite the rarity on this side of the pond for about four more decades. In the 1970's, the dam burst and records began to accumulate rapidly. Ohio's first Lesser Black-backed Gull dates to 1977. We've had scores of the animals since, and it is now an expected species in fall, winter and spring along Lake Erie. Hit a good day, and you might find a dozen. There is an ever-increasing number of interior records, too. We're not unique - Lesser Black-backed Gull has now been recorded in every eastern state, and eastern seaboard hotspots can host hundreds of the birds.

A sharp-looking adult Herring Gull, Larus argentatus, photographed at Barnegat Light, New Jersey. This species is closely related to the Lesser Black-backed Gull.

Given the rather recent and abrupt boom in North American records of Lesser Black-backed Gull, it is somewhat surprising that they aren't yet breeding here. Well, they have, sort of (unless there are other very recent records that I'm unaware of). The first documented nesting was of a Lesser Black-backed that was mated with a Herring Gull in Juneau, Alaska of all places, in 1993. That was unexpected. Then, in 2007 another bird was found nesting on Appledore Island off the coast of Maine, and it too was paired with a Herring Gull. The Appledore Island bird nested  - with its Herring Gull mate - for at least four consecutive years. It's probably only a matter of time before Lesser Black-backed Gulls begin pairing with their own, and nesting records increase.

Many species of big gulls, like the Lesser Black-backed and Herring gulls, are incredibly adaptable. They have fared well in association with man. Our garbage pleases them, and much of the flotsam and jetsam of human society makes for good gull food.

In 1934, when that first New Jersey/North American Lesser Black-backed Gull caused an ornithological stir, the population of the United States was about 126,374,000 people. Today, it's about 314 million people. Gulls that prosper from our waste and cast-offs are one group of animals that benefit from unchecked runaway population growth.

Unfortunately, most animals aren't nearly so adaptable.